Guest Author - Helen Wharton

For those of you who make your crafts to sell, or who are thinking about trying to earn a little extra money selling your crafts, this book is an invaluable addition to your library. Barbara Brabec has taken over 30 years of personal crafting and home-based business experience and put it together in one easy to use book. Every time I read this book, or even a section of it I am inspired. Ms. Brabec has covered the topic of selling your hand crafts from start to finish in this positive, upbeat book.

Handmade For Profit has 16 chapters, including a resource chapter. She starts at the beginning, with an idea, and helps you to define your idea and set goals. There are suggestions about how to do market research, start your business plan and a very helpful exercise called "analyze your excuses". The fear of trying something new can be very crippling and this exercise helped me a great deal.
Also included are easy to use checklists, illustrations, and a list of organizations and websites.

Each chapter takes the reader, step by step, through the process of starting a business. If you've never attempted this before, the thought of it can be daunting, but Ms Brabec takes you by the hand and leads you through it. Some topics covered are deciding what to sell, where to sell, finding your target market and many more. By the time I had finished reading the book (the first time) I had my business cards already printed.

I'm never completely done reading this book because it remains my favorite "go to" for any questions I might have about my crafts business. I highly recommend it for anyone who wants to sell crafts for profit.
This is actually the 2nd edition of this book, so be sure to look for the 2002 edition as opposed to the 1996 edition. There are over 100 new pages of information in the new edition that you don’t want to miss out on!

Details
Handmade For Profit!, Hundreds of Secrets To Success in Selling Arts and Crafts
Author: Barbara Brabec
published by M. Evans and Company, Inc.
ISBN 0-87131-995-0 $14.95 American 372 pages